Obligatory BDO post 2011

I came home greasy, sweaty, smelly and dirty, so I must have been to the Big Day Out. Musically, it wasn't the most amazing of BDOs, but it was well worth it just for Grinderman.

Mostly, it was hot. Really hot. BOM promised us storms, but they never made it to Olympic Park. I spent a good proportion of the day hiding from the sun, but I still managed to enjoy The Naked and Famous, Children Collide, The Jim Jones Revue, Birds of Tokyo, John Butler Trio and Grinderman. The only serious disappointment for me was Bliss n Esso, who were crap, really. Washington didn't excite me as much as I expected, but she was battling the elements so I'd give her another shot.

Grinderman though - wow. Nick Cave back to screaming insanity. I loved it. So did the crowd.

I chose not to take the new iPhone, so the photos are crap, but if you get a chance to see them, do it.

Farewell Powderfinger

Powderfinger are among the latest to announce their disbanding and do a farewell tour. I will be utterly unsurprised when, in a few years, they announce their reunion tour, however, I was happy to go along to the farewell tour, because their last few albums have been a little dull, and I was keen to see a greatest hits show.

Jet were the support act. They sounded like Jet. It was really quite odd seeing them at the Entertainment Centre, it was all wrong.

Powderfinger are a technically brilliant band, but as @The_Ausmerican said on Twitter:

@shonias Powderfinger are so ... dry on stage! They sound like a recording!

I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, I rather like a band that sounds so tight live. The visuals kind of reflect the focus on the music.

But they did have some pretty coloured lights.

We were not in the best of seats, but we did have a great view of the packed house.

They played a few songs from recent albums, which resulted in me singing "I like your old stuff better than your new stuff", but then they made me very happy:

This is one of my favourite Powderfinger songs ever. It was awesome.

Then there was the singalong bit. The compulsory Audience Participation. And Powderfinger did it right. (Unlike Jet, who chose a song nobody knew to get the audience to sing along to...)

There's no video for that, because it was very messy.

It was heaps of fun. They played stuff from all over their back catalogue, but I've always has a soft spot for Double Allergic, and so I was pretty chuffed when they played a second song from it.

I had a great night, and I'm looking forward to the reunion tour.

Them Crooked Vultures

Despite my best intentions, I didn't get time to even listen to the Them Crooked Vultures album, let alone find out much about the band before I went to see them. All the press on them shouted "Josh Homme, Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones" so that's what I knew about them. They had a 4th guy playing guitar, but he was well and truly "the other guy".

We grabbed a seat in the second row of the old people seats. This meant we weren't close up, but we had a clear view. Since I'm a short arse, I wouldn't have been able to see a bloody thing standing anywhere but the first 3 rows on the floor - and since I didn't have 4 hours to stand in a queue to achieve such a spot, it was a seat or a nice view of the backs of tall people's heads.

Since I didn't know the music, I can't tell you much about how this or that song sounded, however I can tell you that pretty much every single pedal ever created for the guitar was used in the set, possible all at once on some occasions. I mean this in a good way. It was a fantastic show - you could hear the influences of all the band members' past lives as well as a good dollop of old school heavy metal.

Musically they are amazing. Josh Homme's voice is incredible, John Paul Jones plays bass and all sorts of other oddities and is as fantastic as his mythical status would suggest and Dave Grohl.... Well I haven't seen Dave Grohl drum for a whole gig before - he does a short stint with the Foo Fighters - and it's definitely an experience. I can't work out whether it's more probable that Jim Henson had a time machine, or that Dave Grohl modelled his style on Animal, but either way the similarity is uncanny. And while watching him was worth the price of admission, listening was even better. I love great drums.

So now to listen to the album a bit.

Sydney Big Day Out 2010

Dear Homebake,

For details on how to run a festival, please see Big Day Out.

Regards,
Fans of Festivals



The second Sydney Big Day Out, 2010, marked the 100th BDO show. They put on a pretty good day to celebrate.

But first, a whinge. I know our State Government is broken. I don't expect a lot of them. Still, planning trackwork on half the train lines that deliver people to Olympic Park on the day that 50,000+ people have to get there is a whole new level of stupid. We tried two methods of getting ourselves there, and in the end my wonderful friend Cate called her even more wonderful friend, Lisa who heroically drove us to the venue. If you'd seen the roundabout at Underwood Rd, you'd say "heroically" too. Just to make the whole situation that much more irritating, Adam was waiting for us at Olympic Park, and his trains were not affected, so he was waiting quite some time since I had his ticket....

Ok, so back to the happies. We had given ourselves a pretty large FUM*, so despite the debacle, we made it in time to see more than half of Lisa Mitchell's set. This was largely because getting into Big Day Out is not an exercise in marathon queuing, it's a slow stroll with a short queue for ticket and bag checks.

Lisa Mitchell was a fantastic choice for kick-off. Her bright pop sounds were perfect to warm up the crowd. Although, as a warning to the kiddies - don't write songs asking "Do you have a dollar for me?" and then sing them for an Australian crowd. Dollar coins hurt when hurled at the stage. Given that she sang the whole song, her sincere plea for people to throw $10 notes or nothing must have been heard.

Blue Juice were next up. Talented they ain't, but they're entertaining. And they put in the hard yards for their audience - they were all wearing yellow spandex body suits. I hope they had industrial strength deodorant, or I pity anyone who needed to be near their dressing room.

Working on the theory that seeing two bands in a row on the same stage would be lazy, we went back to the stage Lisa Mitchell had been on to check out Kisschasy. They were pretty good, I'd be happy to catch them again, but by that time (just after 1pm) it had hit 38 degrees C (100 F) and was still getting hotter, so we decamped to the boiler room for Decoder Ring. This turned out to be the second time I've been in the boiler room and had to ask if the band were on stage, or whether this was still the filler music. Ahem. I am no dance music aficionado. However, it was eminently listenable, and the room was cool with a breeze blowing through. The water we'd been pouring over ourselves all day brought it all together for a pleasant break.

There was some angst about whether to see Kasabian or The Temper Trap, and the latter won. Back to the opposite end of the site. I think they were really good. I can't be sure, though, because my brain had melted and was running out my ears. Up until that point, the day had been hot, but cloudy. Watching The Temper Trap, the sun came out and it hit 43 C (109F). It was a choice between finding shade or ending up crispy - next stop main arena and a seat in the shade.

We caught the last song of Kasabian, but the sound was terrible. It looked like the crowd were well and truly into it down the front. I have a theory that the sound is always crap on the main stages when it's hot - the combination of hot, swirling air and the lower volumes that seem to be enforced during the day makes it very hard to make the sound any good. On average, Australian bands seem to do it better, which is presumably the result of bitter experience.

Eskimo Joe were next up, and demonstrated the Aussie theory I just mentioned, in as much as they sounded better than Kasabian, but it was still pretty ordinary. If you need any proof of how damn hot it was - it was so hot that Eskimo Joe were on stage without scarves or vests! About 10 minutes into their set the first breezes of the southerly hit, the temperature dropped and the sound improved. They were great, they played stuff off all their albums, but sadly still neglected Beat of a Drum.

The main stage just about the time that the breeze came up

With the temperature dropping, we figured we could brave the outside stages again, and headed up for The Decemberists. I knew nothing about this band, except that lots of people had said they were amazing. I liked them, wouldn't say they were amazing, but I imagine that familiarity would be a big bonus. I spent most of my time trying to place all the other bands they reminded me of. The list was long and varied (The Living End, They Might Be Giants, Irish folk music, Neil Young, for example) so I'm not accusing them of lacking originality.

The Green stage before the downpour

The Horrors were next up and for the first time we stayed in one place for more than one act. I can't tell you much about them. The weather gods played another card, and it bucketed down rain and howled with wind. We fled to the bar and stayed there, half listening to the muffled sounds of the music, half being stunned that we were now cold. The same pretty much applied to Rise Against, which is a shame, because I think I would have liked to give them a decent listen.

Anyway, we were always going to go halfway through to see Lily Allen. Last time she was here, she didn't impress me. She clearly felt she was too good to for the gig, even throwing around insults about other performers. No matter how good the music is, I'm not going to enjoy it if the people on stage are bitter and resentful. (Well, unless it's Tim Rogers and goes right on through to hysterically funny.) However, I'd heard good things about her having a much better attitude this time around, so I kept an open mind. It paid off. She was fun, lively and I got to skip to "Fuck You".

Another band, another stage change. Jet were heaps of fun. The crowd were by far the most amusing of the day - some of the best air guitar you'll ever see, all played in the spirit of utter silliness. Fabulous. They're pretty dull on album, but live they really lift. We then had a factional split, and Cate and I stayed for Ladyhawke and everyone else went to Powderfinger. I quite enjoyed her, although she didn't completely grab me. That may say more about my stamina than Ladyhawke, though.

My restful approach to Ladyhawke left me well placed to make the most of Grinspoon. These guys are always fantastic live, and this was no exception. They did a classic festival set, with a bit of everything, including a crowd choice between "Dead Cat" and "Just Ace" - both songs they don't generally play. (Just Ace won.) I was going to head down to Muse half way through the set, but I was having too much fun. The lads next to us were too. They created themselves a huge ring in which they slam danced through the second half of the set. I dunno, the youth of today - they were careful and explicitly didn't involve anyone else in their silliness. Heartwarming it was.

See, I was in the crowd for Grinspoon

I very much doubt anyone is still reading, but I'll carry on. Muse were brilliant, if a bit same-ish. Their cover of Back in Black was well worth the effort.

I didn't trouble myself to get too close to Muse

The BDO folks put on a pretty cool pyrotechnic display at the end of Muse, including great leaping flames that looked awesome. The fireworks weren't massive, but thoroughly entertaining. I rather hope they carry it on as a tradition.

Some of those shots of flame

Oooooh, pretty.

We bailed after that - Massive Attack were not sufficient incentive to dive into the sea of bodies in the Boiler Room. It was a great day despite the weather. There was heaps of free water available, we never waited more than five minutes for a beer, or food, or toilets. Strangely, despite the short wait for alcohol, we seemed to have managed to control ourselves and not get plastered too. Amazing, I know.

I'm looking forward to the next 100 shows.

*FUM = Fuck Up Margin

Today I'm grateful that while I had to go to work, I also got to drive there. It was a magnificent morning and I got to listen to the cicadas chorus at Haberfield,


View Larger Map

to smell the sea breeze as I drove over Anzac Bridge


View Larger Map (this morning was much nicer than the day Google were out)
and to hear a song that grabbed me on the first hearing. I was smiling happily as I swung round to King St, and the universe rewarded my good mood with a park equidistant from the parking meter and the stairs down to the building entrance.

Homebake 09

A touch late, but I've finally got around to writing about Homebake last weekend. It was the 15th anniversary of Homebake, and you'd think after 15 years, they'd have got the basics right. No so much. They still can't manage to get people in smoothly - the queue was about half an hour long at 2pm, when the gates opened at 11am.

The recycling policy is a farce - it means a bottle of water costs $5, and while you get a $1 voucher if you return the empty bottle, that can only be used at the bar. Oooohhhh the bar, there are 4 bars, which is vastly inadequate for the crowd. We are talking up to 45min queues to buy a beer. There is nowhere near enough security to stop people jumping the queue, and there is no-one managing the queue once people finally reach the bar. The bar staff were disorganised. They kept running out of stuff and having to go through all the available options with each person, making the whole process even slower.

Then, at the end of the night, they don't open up the fences, everyone has to file out a small exit, which took 10 or 15 minutes. The whole experience is one of unnecessary control and inconvenience.

Still, the music was good. Tim Finn was the surprise standout for me. I've seen him on TV a few times in the last few years and he hasn't inspired me, but he had everyone dancing and I loved it. Sarah Blasko was lovely, the music was beautiful and her voice was divine, but for all that, it didn't grab me and I wandered off. I don't really know why.

Earlier Eskimo Joe were as good as they always were, the only real surprise being a bit of swearing. They're normally so nice!

Powderfinger were also predictably good, but they played mostly stuff off the two most recent albums. Neither of those albums have really inspired me, so I enjoyed it, but wasn't overly enthused with it.

It was a good day, but I think it will be my last Homebake. I'm over the bad organisation, and paying $7 for crappy, often warm, festival beer. I'm over spending a significant proportion of my day in queues. I'm over being regarded as a problem that needs to be controlled by the organisers.

The White Album Concert

If you don't know how I came to be at the White Album Concert, the story is here. It explains why we arrived half way through Dear Prudence for a start.

We missed 2 and half songs, which is a great shame.

But anyway, what was the White Album Concert you ask? It was Chris Cheney (The Living End), Phil Jamieson (Grinspoon), Josh Pyke (Josh Pyke) and Tim Rogers (You Am I and all the insanity that is Tim Rogers) getting together with a lot of good musos and performing the tracks of the Beatles' White Album in celebration of its 40th anniversary.

In case you're curious, this is who sang what:

Can You Take Me Back - Band
Back in the USSR - Chris Cheney
Dear Prudence - Phil Jamieson
Glass Onion - Chris Cheney
Ob La Di Ob La Da - All 4
Wild Honey Pie - Tim Rogers
Bungalow Bill - Tim Rogers
While My Guitar Gently Weeps - Chris Cheney
Happiness is a Warm Gun - Tim Rogers
Martha My Dear - Josh Pyke
I'm So Tired - Phil Jamieson
Blackbird - Josh Pyke
Piggies - Tim Rogers
Rocky Raccoon - Josh Pyke
Don't Pass Me By - Phil Jamieson
Why Don't We Do It in the Road - Chris Cheney
I Will - Phil Jamieson
Julia - Josh Pyke

Birthday - Chris Cheney
Yer Blues - Phil Jamieson
Mother Nature's Son - Josh Pyke
Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey - Tim Rogers
Sexy Sadie - Phil Jamieson
Helter Skelter - Chris Cheney
Long, Long, Long - Josh Pyke
Revolution - Tim Rogers
Honey Pie - Phil Jamieson
Savoy Truffle - Chris Cheney
Cry Baby Cry - Josh Pyke
Goodnight - Tim Rogers

If you know the artists and the songs, you'll probably come to same conclusion I did - it was unlikely that there was much squabbling over who sang what, most of them seem incredibly obvious. The program says that Tim Rogers confesses "that Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da is his least favourite song of the 1960s". It also says that he would be singing it. Perhaps the song got the better of him, because the other 3 sang it without him:


until the last verse, at which point he finally appeared.

When he was on stage, Tim pranced, flounced and posed with incredible passion and comic timing. He continues to be far superior performing other people's music.

Chris Cheney, on the other hand, is just an awesome vocalist and guitarist. While My Guitar Gently Weeps was extraordinary.


A photo will never capture that sound, or the palpable appreciation of the audience for it.

I am sooooo tempted to describe it song by song, but that could get tedious, even for me. So a quick list of highlights: Tim Rogers was meant for Piggies (complete with snort), Phil Jamieson was poignant with I'm So Tired, Josh Pyke did Blackbird all the justice it deserved (I love that song), Chris Cheney was awesome and hysterical with Birthday, and Everybody's Got Something to Hide, Helter Skelter and Revolution were perfectly executed by their respective artists.

Special mention needs to be made of Phil Jamieson's Honey Pie. It was beautiful silent movie comedy, complete with Tim Rogers bringing on a long stemmed white flower to Phil to swoon over and with and ultimately throw into the audience. It was the height of the playful attitude they took with whole night, and it was fantastic.

After Goodnight, they all came back on stage together and sang Revolution, Hey Bulldog and Why Don't We Do It in the Road.


They rather appeared to enjoy themselves.

Given everything that happened, I felt a glass of bubbly was in order during the intermission so I jumped in the queue and had my star spotter moment for the night - Matthew Newton was next to us. And just to reinforce that these were pretty reasonable seats, Mr Newton also walked past us to resume his seat in our row.

It was bloody awesome, is what I'm saying here. It was musically fantastic and hysterically funny. Great night, great performance.

The Butterfly Effect

My sister very kindly indulged me and came to see The Butterfly Effect with me last night. I first saw them at the Big Day in 2004

Image credit: The Butterfly Effect

I didn't know who they were, but they blew me away, and I bought their album. Then I saw them again at BDO 2009.

I've missed the few other occasions that have arisen to see them on their own, so I jumped on this one.

Calling All Cars and Dead Letter Circus were the supports. We missed the beginning of Calling All Cars, but caught the current single, Not Like Anybody and rather enjoyed them.

Dead Letter Circus had technical problems, I think. The vocals were... kinda missing. At least the bottom end was. It looked like we were listening to him through other people's mics. This did them a disservice, their recorded sound is fantastic. Despite the sound being less than ideal, they were a great act. Their appearance alone was amusing enough - a serious, Michael Stipe-ish lead singer, an old school 80's metal long haired drummer (shirtless of course), a scruffy looking bass player sporting a less-than-flattering headband and an ill-fitting T-shirt and finally a college-boy guitarist in a nice button up shirt and bouffant. The bass player's antics on stage were hilarious. I'd be interested to see them again when I could hear the vocals.

The Butterfly Effect came on stage to the strains of Money for Nothing, and then Clint started to sing and I fell in love a little more - with both the band and Clint. They were awesome. They had an amazing display of art behind them, some photos, some abstract imagery. I would have been fascinated if I'd been able to look anywhere other than Clint for more than a few moments. He has that indefinable stage presence - not to mention a serious talent to start off slow, build passionately, with perhaps a quiet, intimate interlude and then finish off with spectacular intensity. Again, and again.

Ahem.

They did a cover of Reckless by Australian Crawl, which confused some elements of the very diverse crowd, but it was one of those truly fantastic covers. The first verse was true to the original, but the chorus and much of the rest of the song was sped up (an improvement, frankly), except for that divine little guitar solo which was played with genuine respect.



I could do without the fake encore, but it was brief, and they came back for only two songs. It was a heap of fun being on the edge of what passed for the mosh, although it was fairly sedate. As mentioned, it was a wonderfully mixed crowd. However, to the woman in the very high stilettos and the Glomesh bag: No matter how much you might want to impress your date for the night, I really don't recommend those shoes for a dance floor concert.

It is no surprise that The Butterfly Effect rates regularly amongst people's fav live acts.

Monstors of Rock

Yes, they really did call a concert that.

On Saturday night we saw Rose Tattoo, The Screaming Jets and The Angels. Three of the classic pub rock bands of Australia's music history, some of them looking more historical than others.

We missed the start of Rose Tattoo (the cocktails at Zanzibar were that good), but Angry hasn't changed a bit. Well, ok, the gut has probably expanded, and the rest of the Tatts could probably benefit from Angry's hair cut, but they may as well have been performing in 1978. They were great. Angry gave some customary lectures about ANZAC day and it was all good. They seemed completely comfortable with just playing all the crowd fav's. A great mix of nostalgia and awesome rock performance.

I've always loved seeing The Jets, Dave Gleeson is a dick, but he puts on a great show. I was a little concerned about how tragic he might have become, but it turns out he has become a parody of himself, and that works just fine. I was a little disappointed to not see FRC or Shiver (the latter being one of the great Aussie covers in my mind), but they started with Blue Sashes and finished with Better, so I can't complain. Being 20 years younger than their fellow bands, they are still recording, and played a new one (Mary Jane) which I didn't hate. Seems they might have been listening to a bit of Paul Kelly recently. My only real regret was that we were sitting in the old people seats, and I'd have loved to have been down on the floor for these guys. So much so that if they do a pub tour on the new album, I'll drag a bunch of people along to see them again.

And then we come to The Angels. I've seen them more times than I can count - the most notable being at the Entertainment Centre supporting Guns n Roses in 1989 and they were so amazing I thought they'd blow the Gunners off the stage. In fact, Axl had not yet destroyed his body and voice with squillions of dollars' worth of drugs, and Guns n Roses were awesome, but that Angels show still stands out in my mind. I know Doc is a lot worse for wear - I watched a doco on SBS last year following one of their more recent tours. I also know most of the band hates each other. Unfortunately both of these facts were apparent on stage. They played a fantastic set of classics and it all sounded great, but it wasn't great to watch. I loved it, nonetheless - every word came back to me without hesitation, along with a goodly proportion of my teenage years. Graham Marshall, if you are still alive, I was back in your parents' lounge room on Saturday night. :)

So I'm not sure I'd recommend The Angels to someone lacking in my nostalgic connection, but the other two are reliably fun for anyone with a love of rock. Besides, a gig with everyone from 18 year olds sporting a whole jar of hair product (the boys at least) to 60 year olds with grey hair and goatees is well worth it. There were some other women. I think. :)

Josh Pyke

In keeping with my tradition of timely reviews, I'm just getting around to writing about Josh Pyke from last Friday night.

Another Metro gig - love those gigs.

Due to badly timed doctor's appointments and my day from hell, we missed the first support act and only saw a few songs from Cloud Control. They weren't bad - fluffy pop with a keyboardist looking like a wood sprite skipping about in green tights and a brown smock. Death Cloud is sufficiently catchy that I remembered it from its airplay before I saw them. I also recognised Vintage Books when they played it.

We watched these guys standing behind a middle aged couple with two teenage girls. It was a distinctly bi-modally distributed crowd - with a pronounced lull between 25 and 40 years of age. It was accompanied by an excessive level of kanoodling in the upper peak of the distribution. Not your standard crowd is all I'm saying.

We moved for Josh Pyke so we could watch him instead of some low level groping, which put us way up the back, but with a clear line of sight.

I can't imagine how anyone could not like Josh Pyke. I mean, I get that you mightn't find that his music rocks your world, but live, the music is fun, the crowd knows all the words and he is so chuffed that everyone came out to see him you have to buy in. I knew all the singles and they were great. They were about half of the show, and of the others, there was a selection of darker, bassier tracks that I loved the sound of. I might have to get around to actually buying an album. He's been on the list for a while, but CD shopping rarely makes it into the diary.

The Lighthouse Song was a great moment for Australian choral singing. It's a lovely, lilting tune with pretty lyrics of the "together we can ignore the world and be happy" variety. The chorus also ends with:

And though our doors may knock and rattle in the wind
I'll just hold you tight and we'll not let those fuckers in

Up until this song, the audience had been vaguely tuneful. But I laughed every single time he sung those last four words and the crowd screamed it out with a gusto that AC/DC would envy.

For a really, spectacularly shitty day, it was the perfect anti-dote. His music is relentlessly cheerful (even the darker tracks have cheerful lyrics). He loves his girlfriend. People are fallible but lovable in his songs. If he comes your way, go see him. Worst case scenario, you too can laugh at the audience.

I should have seen it coming

Around 20 minutes after putting the boys to bed this evening, I was ensconced in taking silly quizzes* and seriously considering a shower when my self indulgence was rudely interrupted by many very loud thumps from above. So I hauled my arse up the stairs and opened the bedroom door to find both boys in the middle of the room giggling and looking incredibly guilty. Ben scarpered straight up to his bunk and reluctantly informed me that they were playing "jumping off the bed".

After reading the riot act, I left the room to the strains of the Presidents of the United States of America. Perhaps I shouldn't let the boy choose his own bedtime music...

*Apparently I am Belle (whoever she is), Alice Cullen, going to die in my sleep, 70% Wilmington (wherever that is) and only 17% redneck.**

**I am also becoming way too fond of footnotes

Big Day Out

The Big Day Out kicked off in Auckland on 16th January and hit Sydney on Friday. Headliners were The Prodigy, Neil Young and the Dropkick Murphys.

Getting tickets is getting sillier and sillier each year, but thanks to Triple J telling everyone they had sold out, I managed to grab some.

Unlike Homebake, the organisational aspects are improving all the time at BDO. It took us just under an hour from being dropped at the railway station to watching a band - trains travelled, mates met, bags searched, Over 18 wristbands on and the first bottle of water of the day secured. The number of bars has increased significantly, and the queues were quite short. No concern about whether you'll be able to go get another beer. Less insane drinking. If it wasn't for the 768,000 police desperately looking for party drugs (Oh noooess, people might take Ecstacy and be nice to each other!!!), there would only be good things to say about the Powers That Be.

The first band I was keen to see was Children Collide, a Melbourne band who play weird rock. The seemed pretty good, but we were in the stands of the main stage, and the sound is nearly always abysmal in the main arena before the sun goes down. I don't know how much of it is the sound people and how much is the effect of an arena full of hot, swirling air, but it is pretty annoying. It was too hot to convince ourselves to go down and get closer, so I'll chalk them up to someone I want to see elsewhere.

Next up we wandered up to the green stage to get a beer and see Youth Group and Little Red. I saw Youth Group a couple of years ago on the same stage, but they didn't really grab me then. They may have just done a more lively set this time, but I quite enjoyed them.

I liked Little Red at Homebake, and with with me up off my arse (rather than sitting under a tree), they were even better. Definitely a good fun band you'd be happy to see live any time. Very old school rock - very strong 60's influences.

After that I went back to the main stage for Cog, while some of my friends stayed for the Ting Tings. Cog had much the same problem as Children Collide, but I love their music and hung around anyway. Must make an effort to see them somewhere else too.

Back to the green stage for the Black Kids, which didn't really grab me - I can't remember much of them. After that we needed a break from the heat and sun, so we sat and drank water and chatted while TV on the Radio and Died Pretty did their thing nearby.

By 7pm the heat was out of the sun, and while it wasn't cool, it wasn't the 35 C it had been earlier either, and we settled into the main stage for The Living End. I haven't seen them in years, and they were fantastic. Prisoner of Society is still an awesome song, and their more recent White Noise is bloody good too.

The Arctic Monkeys were amusing enough, not my bag, but I don't mind hearing their stuff on the radio. I heard an interview with them in which they said they were doing a cover of Nick Cave's Red Right Hand. The interviewer (Richard Kingsmill from Triple J) almost kept his astonishment at bay, and asked if it had a different sound or if it was menacing like the original. They said it was different, but still menacing. Not so much. Hysterical, yes, menacing, not even slightly. Every single time they sang the words "red right hand" I dissolved into giggles. If you don't know Nick Cave, go listen to the You Tube link, and then compare with this.

After that it was back to the green stage for The Butterfly Effect. These guys hooked me at the BDO five years ago. Forced me to go out and buy their first album, which has lead, inevitably, to me buying the subsequent two. They have advanced from mid-afternoon on the green stage to second last - and their music is definitely better suited to the dark. The only down side is that I could no longer casually stand 10 feet from the stage - the 5000 other people were making that difficult. Clint Boge's voice is amazing, and at least as good live as in the studio. He's not too hard on the eyes either, although I liked him better without hair. I must see these guys more often, I must see these guys more often....

Unfortunately, The Butterfly Effect clashed with Neil Young. I'd have stayed and watched him if it wasn't for my slight obsession. We got back for the last half hour or so of Neil Young, but we'd missed most of my fav's. He was as self indulgent as you would expect for someone of his calibre, and the songs I saw had more endings than a Nightmare on Elm St movie. But his sound was clean and tight and thoroughly enjoyable. He finished with Rockin' in the Free world - for about 15 minutes. Always fun. Then he came back for an encore with a surprisingly awesome cover of A Day in the Life - although I have to admit it was less creepy when John Lennon sang "I'd love to turn you on".

So we were home by about 11:30pm, smelly and in desperate need of a cup of tea. Trains ran smoothly to get home again - and my ticket even worked in the machine, despite having got drenched when I had drowned myself repeatedly in an effort to deal with the heat.

Excellent day, great company. Bring on next year!

Homebake

Since last week was such a disaster, I am just getting to the Homebake thing. I hope I remember it well enough!

Homebake is over 18s only now because of licensing laws or some nonsense. Utterly ridiculous. Two different coloured wrist bands works fine - I wonder what do-gooder decided to change the rules. I find it particularly annoying because music festivals are more and more becoming one of the few inter-generational large scale social events (other than sport, and contrary to prevailing wisdom, not everyone is into sport). There are people of all ages there, and lots are taking their kids to festivals they have been attending for years. Shutting out teenagers seems really wrong to me.

Anyway, onto the music. I got there in time to see Subaudible Hum - I like a song or two. They sounded great - awesome full sound and good vocals. Unfortunately they were also a little dull. It's always a problem for a chilled band to really grab the crowd around lunch time at a festival. I sat under a tree and enjoyed the set, but there were very few people in front of the stage - it was really hot and they just weren't exciting enough to stand in the heat for.

Then I caught a wee bit of Bluejuice, a Sydney band known primarily for Vitriol. All of what I heard sounds like Vitriol, it was fun and the crowd was loving it. Definitely a fun pub band, if not really my kind of music.

Little Red were next up on the same stage as Subaudible Hum. Being an hour later, and having more shade than the main stage, it was packed. They are rocky, had the crowd bouncing and definitely upped the buzz. Sadly the vocals were crap, but I enjoyed them anyway - more good pub music.

A mate turned up at the end of Little Red, and he was keen to see Snob Scrilla. Not my kind of music, but they continue the recent trend of Aussie hip hop bands having musicians. You can bring hip hop to Australia, but you can't take the rock out of it.

I spent a bit of time chatting and drinking beer after that, but saw some British India from afar. They looked pretty good, actually. Fun pop - I should try and catch them another time.

You Am I were the next band I actively went to see. I've seen them many times before, but they didn't really grab me that night. Don't know why - maybe I'm just used to Tim Rogers being obnoxious and he wasn't.

Crowded House were the headliners. It's hard to go wrong really. I've not seen them before, and I loved it. Lots of sing along, awesome sound. The new stuff didn't rock my boat, but it was eminently listenable. The Finns are a truly talented family.

The hysteria over binge drinking has made a mess of the day. There were only 3 bars, with well over half an hour queue time. No doubt that stopped some people drinking altogether, but a lot more just ordered the maximum number of beers for themselves each time they got there, and then drank them quickly to stop them getting hot. It encouraged drinking more and faster.

They also had a recycling program whereby a $1 surcharge was applied to all drink containers which could be refunded when you returned the container. Great idea. Almost. They only had one place you could return them - which also ended up with enormous queues thereby discouraging people from recycling. Surely it was a no brainer that any place that sold the containers could take them back.

My final bitch is the whole free water farce. If you are serious about reducing drinking, you either provide water at a sensible price (NOT $5 a bottle) or you have free tap water available all over the site. They had neither. St Johns Ambulance had big containers of water, but they had trouble keeping up with demand and were only in a couple of places. It's blatant profiteering and utterly disgusting.

If you want to rip me off, fine - I have a choice about whether or not to go - but don't go bleating on about being concerned for health and the environment while you're at it.

Michael Franti made me cry

Michael Franti has been on my list of artists to see before I die for a while now. Probably about a month after his last tour. :) I don't own an album, and I only know a handful of songs, but I find the man inspiring, and by all accounts his shows are amazing.

So I jumped on the opportunity to see him at the Enmore, and got tickets for the front section of the dance floor - if you're going for the experience, you want to be in the thick of it. Tim, a friend of mine, came with me and made the excellent suggestion of finding ourselves a spot on the right hand side of the stage. There we camped, and there we were when Cherine Anderson came out. What a voice. She was singing to recorded music, but her amazing voice and stage presence over-rode it.

I have to admit, I missed the beginning of Spearhead, because I was buying beer. I didn't really need the beer that badly, but the queues were long, and you know how it is when you've committed yourself to a course of action...

Anyway, by the time I got back, every part of the dance floor was sardines, except our nice little spot in front of the stage. Very pleasant. There is no way you can watch Michael Franti and not smile. Or avoid dancing. Both happen whether you like it or not. He loves what he does, his smile is overwhelmingly infectious. A friend of mine has told me on several occasions that she would leave behind her life with women to have Michael Franti's babies. After seeing him sing "All I Want Is You" with Cherine Anderson, I no longer doubt her integrity on that point.

A couple of weeks ago I heard Dr Karl talking about how music is used in all cultures as something of an emotional state reboot. By listening to music together, our brains all find themselves in the same mood state - must have been highly adaptive in helping men come back from the hunt all testosterone laden and then chill out and interact peacefully with the group. I was just thinking how incredibly effective Franti's music was at this (during "Everyone Deserves Music"), when he stopped for a chat. He spoke about a letter he received in Brisbane from a woman whose 21 year old daughter had had a stroke, and was capable only of tiny movements of her head. Of course, he went to see her (wouldn't have been much of a story otherwise), and he sang a few songs for her, kissed her on the forehead and placed his finger on her lips. She moved her lips to kiss him - the first time she had moved them since the stroke 7 or 8 weeks ago. She can now move her left hand a little, and everyone in that room is desperately hoping she makes a dramatic recovery. I know I wasn't the only one crying. Whatever Michael Franti wants you to feel, you feel it. Good thing he uses this power for good.

Nearly 2 and a half hours of music, with only a change of clothing - no pretence of encore. The band left the stage with an established chant going, and were back before the audience even thought of getting bored. I love that. I also love the smell of marijuana. I think they should legalise it so that I can use it as incense. I wonder if anyone has ever made that argument before.

I notice I've written all this, and barely mentioned the music. It's not really my style, but they are clearly damn good at it. Michael Franti might be an imposing personality, but he is fronting a very talented band who successfully carried me off into the moment without my having a great deal of appreciation for much of the musical style. I actually enjoyed "Pass the Dutchie", which says a lot for them. I was definitely a rock chick in a foreign land, but Michael Franti and Spearhead made me feel so welcome, I was only aware of it some of the time. I may never own a Spearhead album, but I doubt I'll miss another gig.

Faker

I'm finally getting to writing the Faker review...

They had a DJ of some sort as their first support. Since Crash and I don't get out too often together, we decided dinner at the Wazza was a better option. We got off our arses and got down to the Enmore for the next support act, Sparkadia. These guys have been talked up in a big way by Triple J, so I was prepared to give them a go. They are very poppy, which is not a bad thing by definition, but still it takes a bit to grab me in the world of pop. The best description I could come up with is that they remind me of Coldplay. The songs sound great, but after a minute or two you are wondering why they haven't finished yet. Very polished sound, just not interesting enough to make it to the end of the song. In the end I found myself snoozing during the latter half of most of the songs.

Faker are great. Lots of fun, very charismatic, energetic front man and the music is much better live than it is recorded. I don't mind their stuff in general, but I haven't been inspired to buy the album, it seems a bit same-ish. But live it all has much more of an edge, the stuff grabs you in a way the recorded versions don't.

I would thoroughly recommend these guys to anyone with any passing interest in Oz rock. It's very friendly, easy to come at music. They've been around for a while now, and it seems they are getting better. It will be interesting to see if they ever manage to capture the passion of the live set on an album - they could prove to be a great band if they do.

The Whitlams

Last night Crash and I managed to go to a concert together, which is a relatively rare phenomenon. He's a big Whitlams fan, and I like a fair bit of their music quite a lot. Then again, I find some of it rather dull, and Tim Freedman is possibly the most irritating person in Australian music.

Last night they played with Symphonie des Femme, who as far as I can tell are stringsource with a sexier name for Tim Freedman's benefit. OK, I have no evidence that it is for Tim Freedman's benefit, other than his bizarre treatment of them last night.

The music was great, Whitlams music lends itself very well to orchestral arrangements, and I loved it. Tim Freedman is pretty funny and I generally enjoyed the show. A couple of bizarre moments stood out. Apart from several references to the clothing of the musicians, when they left the stage for the part of the show without them, Tim whinged about being able to hear all the girls chattering, and compared it to recess or "little lunch" at primary school. Nice.

The other bizarre moment was them playing "The Curse Stops Here". They played it second last, in the encore. I hadn't heard it before, and missed the news of Andy's death. Andy being one of the three founding members of the Whitlams, along with Tim and Stevie. Stevie committed suicide in 1996. Andy committed suicide in 2000. Perhaps I am jaded, but I didn't find The Curse Stops Here heartrending, I found it self indulgent and a little dismissive of those who died. I understand anger towards suicide, I just thought the Charlie trilogy did it better, this one feels like it's all about Tim. Then again, perhaps that isn't so surprising.

Still, a fun show. You'd never hate a Whitlams concert.

Next up more Aussie music, Faker next week.

The Herd

This week has been... gaaaaa,

But Friday week ago, I went to see The Herd at The Metro. A local Sydney band playing in one of Sydney's best venues. Added to the fact that it is virtually impossible not to enjoy a band with 8 people on stage, it was bound to be a good night. I saw a bit of their set at the 07 Big Day Out, and I really enjoyed it. I had some high hopes.

I should be point out that my knowledge of the "Not Rock" genre is virtually non-existent. I have been developing a taste for Australian hip hop recently - it doesn't tend to be about how awesomely awesome they are. Rather, it is self deprecating humour, other-deprecating humour, or, like The Herd, political. In my new found appreciation for this other world, I have learned almost none of the jargon, or taxonomy. So if I sound like I don't know my house from my trance from my urban, it's because I don't. But to quote the cliche, I know what I like.

I loved The Herd's version of "I Was Only 19". "Unpredictable" was a lot of fun. But "The King is Dead" won me forever. What a way to capture a moment in history.

The gig itself. Well, I am an old person. I was expecting to be the oldest person there, but actually it was a really varied crowd. So I may not have been the only one thinking that 11pm is too late to start the gig, despite knowing that it was a pretty early kick off for a hip hop headliner. Despite this, I loved the show. They have a ball on stage, play a huge range of instruments, with DJ providing beats and support, rather than the bulk of the music. Jane Tyrrell has a great voice. I loved it. And "The King is Dead" re-created the party atmosphere of November 07. I particularly appreciated this, since I didn't get to partake at the real thing, Elissa being two weeks old and all. Absolutely recommended. Go see them, you can't fail to have a great time.

Note for the unwary (or forgetful like myself): The Metro airconditions appropriately to the weather. If it is cold outside, they keep it cold enough inside to wear your hoodie. This is exactly as it should be, but generally not how it is. Therefore I dressed for your average hothouse, and then froze my proverbials off all night. This has happened to me there before. I am blogging this so that I might manage to remember next time.

And finally, a note to the guy in the white [some surf label] hoodie who spoke to use half a dozen times: Not everything checked is a flanno. And I don't really care how many pairs of jeans you own, or whether your girlfriend can testify to the number of flannos you own. But I hope you had a good night out afterwards. We were too old and went home.

Cold War Kids

Last night I saw the Cold War Kids at The Enmore. They had Delta Spirit as a support act.

Delta Spirit started well. It was interesting enough, with the first song played in 3/4 time, and really interesting percussion. But then they just kept playing. And it got less and less interesting. At the point that they told us we were the best audience they'd had in Australia, you could barely hear them over the chit chat. And then they played another 5 songs! They played for an hour. Way too long.

So finally CWK came on about 10:10pm. I really love the music, and I was pleasantly surprised by his voice live, as I had seen live footage that didn't do him much justice. It was a fun show, and they clearly enjoy their music.

Now come the buts. They played in the dark. They were lit only from behind and above, and the latter only rarely. If I bother to go see a band, I like to actually see them. Maybe I'm just old fashioned.

Then they played Hospital Beds. This was disappointing in two respects - for one, it wasn't 11pm yet, and that was clearly a next to last song. And secondly, he really can't sing that live. They came back and played two songs after, but it was only just after 11pm when they finished. Compared with Angus and Julia Stone at $35, the $62 this one cost did not look like good value. I like their music, but I won't be heading out to see them live again.

The Vines

My sister and I both won tickets to see a Triple J gig at Manning Bar on Wednesday night, which definitely made my week.

The Dukes of Windsor were first up, and I really enjoyed them. Melodic poppy rock. Fun to watch, and nothing in the way of rock star airs. In fact, they look like the chess club started a band. The keyboard player was the only one who actually had a haircut.

Then was The redsunband, who did not rock my world. The sound was terrible. I'm pretty sure the vocalist has a great voice, but it was very hard to hear her. It pretty much sounded like a long, uninteresting drum solo with some added background noise.

And then we got to see The Vines. Legendary for some of the worst live performances ever given. Legendary for having a crazy lead singer. Since the legends began, Craig, the lead singer, has been diagnosed with (I think) Asbergers, and has obviously learned to manage it a little better. But the "creative" personality type was still visible, possibly all part of the show. I'd have been disappointed if there was no crazy, after all he traded on it for several years.

The performance was actually pretty good. Short sharp songs, lots of posturing and ridiculous hairdos. All good. I'd say they are worth a looksee if they don't cost you a bomb, but your dollars are probably better spent on The Dukes of Windsor...

And this grainy picture of The Dukes is definitely leading me in the direction of asking for a pocket sized decent camera for Chrissy...

Twice in a lifetime

Last night I booked tickets to see Rolf Harris in December. I saw him when I was about 6 or 7, as did Crash, and now Ben will see him 2 days before he turns 6. Charlie has a ticket too, we'll decide whether not that is a good plan closer to the time.

He probably won't sing "Let me abo go loose Bruce" like last time, but he probably will do Stairway to Heaven. Should be fun. Makes last weekend's Fogey Rock look like pups.